Phase Two Of The Nottingham Express Transit Opens Today
The Nottingham Express Transit is in my view one of our better tram systems.
As a regular user of tram systems in the UK and Europe and a Londoner, I actually think that the London Tramlink is the best, but that is because of the ticketing, which is based on the London contactless system and I just touch-in and go. Both Nottingham and Croydon systems are low-floor systems.
Nottingham Express Transit (NET) has also proved to be reasonably commercially successful. Wikipedia says this.
The new line proved successful, leading to an increase of public transport use for the Nottingham urban area of 8% in the five years to 2008, together with a less than 1% growth in road traffic, compared to the national average of around 4%. Nottingham has exceeded the most optimistic predictions, carrying 9.7 million people in 2005. This bolsters the case for the construction of new lines.
In my view other than the non-contactless ticketing, NET major problems are that it is not big enough, doesn’t connect properly to the rail station and doesn’t serve the two football and the major cricket grounds at Trent Bridge, which are all clustered together a twenty-minute walk south of the rail station.
The size problem is being rectified today with opening of Phase 2 of the system. According to this article on Global Rail News, it is happening today.
I think that this could turn out to be a significant day in the history of modern tramways in the UK, as if it proves out to be a successful extension to a proven system, it will be a wonderful advert for trams and light-rail in general.
It is just a pity, that the tram system still doesn’t serve the three sports grounds. Nottingham County Cricket Club, does at least say this about using trams to get to the ground on this page of its web site.
The nearest tram stop, Station Street, is a 20 minute walk from the ground, and anyone travelling from outside the city can take advantage of NET’s free park and ride facilities.?As an added incentive to take the tram, NET will be running a £2 return ticket for all match and season ticket holders.
Nottingham Forest give no information on how to use the tram, although Notts County would seem to run a similar scheme to the cricket.
This Google Map shows the layout of the station, the River Trent and the three sports grounds.
Nottingham Station, The River Trent And Sports Grounds
Note the bridge at the left hand side of the map over the River Trent. This is the Wilford Toll Bridge, which the NET uses to cross the river.
I suspect though that many meetings about transport in Nottingham have concluded that crossing the River Trent is the biggest transport problem in the area.
When I used to drive to Nottingham from Suffolk to either see a client or watch football or racing, getting away from the city to the East was always difficult, as the river always seemed to get in the way.
The simplistic solution to solve the sports ground problem of running a tram route over Trent Bridge or Lady Bay Bridge, which are the two bridges near the grounds would probably be the sort of measure that would be terribly unpopular with motorists.
I have searched for stories about a possible new crossing across the Trent to the East of Nottingham and there is certainly a lot of studies and speculation. This report in the Nottingham Post talks about a fourth road crossing and this one in the same paper talks about a foot and cycle crossing.
My feelings are that this is a classic problem, that should be sorted locally by a local Nottingham-wide Mayor or Transport Commissioner, responsible to a lkocal electorate.
If the extension to the NET are successful and take traffic off the roads, this might give impetus to expand the tram to the east and south-east of the city coupled with a new route to get cars and trucks over the river. This is a Google Map of the East of Nottingham.
East Nottingham
Note Lady Bay Bridge and the City Ground in the bottom left-hand corner and the Holme Pierrepoint National Watersports Centre to the right. I bet the Watersports Centre would love a tram from the centre of Nottingham.
Also in this map in the top right hand corner is Carlton station on the Nottingham to Lincoln rail line. After what I’ve seen in Germany, this line would be one, they’d not hesitate to use for tram-trains. Little modification except for electrification would be needed outside of the city. At Nottingham station, the tram-trains would become trams and use the tram network to get to their final destination. I hope that Nottingham’s great and good visit their twin city of Karlsruhe and see how tram-trains working on the Karlsruhe model combine trams and trains in the city.
One thing that would make connecting tram-trains to the new tram stop at Nottingham station is that Nottingham station is not on a cramped site and a lot of the land surrounding the station is surface-level car parking.
I can envisage tram-trains arriving at Nottingham station from places like Grantham, Mansfield and Newark and then transferring to the NET tracks to go north or south from the station. You could even run tram-trains to Sheffield, so that the two tram systems are connected.
Compared to similar lines around Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and Cardiff, the frequencies on all these rail branches out of Nottingham are not high enough. Nottingham to Sheffield, as an example is only twice an hour, when four should be a minimum for cities of this size.
I suspect that Nottingham is watching the result of Sheffield’s tram-train trial to Rotherham with interest.
One way or other the Nottingham Express Transit will be key to solving the transport problems in Nottingham.
Did You Know Sheffield Had A Strassenbahn?
I didn’t either, but if you read this first paragraph of this Wikipedia entry for NET 2012.
Der NET 2012 (Abkürzung für Niederflur Elektrotriebwagen 2012) ist ein Straßenbahntriebwagen, der bei Vossloh für die Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe hergestellt wurde. Der Triebwagen wurde für den Einsatz bei der Straßenbahn Karlsruhe entwickelt und verkehrt dort seit 18. Oktober 2014. Ähnliche Fahrzeuge werden für die Straßenbahn Chemnitz und die Straßenbahn Sheffield hergestellt.
I know it’s in German, but look at the last sentence. It loosely says similar cars will be produced for the Strassenbahn in Chemnitz and Sheffield.
So as I suspected most of technology for the Class 399 tram-train for Sheffield is proven in extensive use on the Karlsruhe Strassenbahn. It would appear that there may even some vehicles that run on both 750 VDC and 16.7 kVAC in Karlsruhe, according to this Wikipedia entry for Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.
The big difference is that the Karlsruhe tram-trains come from Dusseldorf, whereas the Sheffield vehicles are coming from Valencia. But if you look at the Vossloh specifications of the two tram-trains, the German NET 2012 and the British Class 399, they seem to be very similar.
As the first Sheffield tram-train has been unveiled in Valencia, it shouldn’t be long before they are seen on the streets of Sheffield, even if it will be a couple of years before they run to Rotherham.
Vossloh’s Product Sheet For The Class 399 Tram-Train
I was reading this article on Global Rail News about the full certification of the Vossloh Citylink tram-trains that are being used in Karlsruhe and Chemnitz. I’ve seen both systems and these are some pictures that I took.
I apologise, if I’ve got some identification wrong.
On searching the Internet I found this product sheet on the Vossloh web site. It is actually titled Dual-Voltage Tram-Train Sheffield.
There are two bits of good news.
The product sheet says that the tram-train is air-conditioned.
But the best news is this from the article in Global Rail News.
Operator Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe GmbH (VBK) has now exercised two options for a total of 50 additional Citylink LRVs to add to the 25 procured in 2011. All of the new low-floor vehicles should be delivered by summer 2017.
Would Karlsruhe have ordered seventy-five trams, if they weren’t up to the job?
So Sheffield isn’t getting some totally brand-new technology. They may be the first dual-voltage Vossloh Citylink tram-trains, but that is technology, that has ben wel-proven in many places.
From Karlsruhe To Basel
I left Karlsruhe for Basel and one of the tram-trains had even turned up in the station.
Again it was another of those journeys which would have been better in the sun.
There is though the chance of having a stop in Baden-Baden to break up the journey.
Exploring Karlsruhe And Its Trams And Tram/Trains
As the main reason I went to Karlsruhe was to see their tram/trains, properly called the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn, in action, I’m combining all the posts in the city in one.
It’s also probably a good idea to combine the pictures, as the main street of the city is being dug up to create a new tunnel for the tram/trains across the city. So you can’t really see any of the city’s attractions.
Notice that Karlsruhe’s tram/trains can be quite large and I think I saw some of four or possibly five coaches. Their network is also over two hundred and fifty kilometres, so small it is not! By comparison the Sheffield Supertram is just thirty kilometres, but Sheffield has a population twice that of Karlsruhe. These figures show how undeveloped our tram systems are compared to those in Germany.
It will certainly be worth returning to Karlsruhe, when the tunnel is complete and the network is expanded.
The operation of Karlsruhe’s tram-trains are often described as the Karlsruhe model. Kassel is described as working to this and so is the Tyne and Wear Metro, although that is not a tram-train, but it does share tracks with heavy rail.
Karldruhe also uses Vossloh Citylink tram-trains, which are similar to the Class 399 ordered for Sheffield for operation as tram-trains to Rotherham.
From Darmstadt To Karlsruhe
My last leg of the day was to take a direct train between Darmstadt and Karlsruhe. This was a quick journey of about an hour and a quarter.
The route is more interesting in sunny weather than the couple of pictures I took, as it passes through Heidelberg, which would make another break. In fact both Darmstadt and Heidelberg, would make a better overnight stop than sterile, inaccessible and complicated Frankfurt. For Frankfurt, think of Birmingham or Manchester with lots of high rises and no culture or good places to have a quick meal or coffee. I pity those, who have to go there on business regularly.
The Anonymous Widower 